


skits

by rarmaster



Series: don't you worry child [21]
Category: crossover - Fandom
Genre: Gen, I Don't Think I'm Violating Any Rules And If I Am I'm Sorry, i'm not going to bother ya'll with a million tagged characters, or tagged anything, we're just gonna post this here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 5,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22828339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: DYWC skits, like this is a Tales of Game.aka misc character interaction converastions that are only like 500 words long and don't really have any plot! just interesting and/or funny conversations!
Relationships: various
Series: don't you worry child [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1414204
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	1. yeet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade and Soma discuss memes (again)

“I guess you could just. Yeet it over there,” Soma says.

Jade blinks.

“What.”

“Um.” Soma turns to her, eyes narrowed. “Yeet?” 

“I have no idea what a yeet is.”

Soma’s eyes go wide like his world is ending.

“How do you not know what yeet is!!! It’s _ancient!!!_ ”

Jade hums, eyes narrowed as she considers him. “ _How_ ancient?” she asks.

“Like, uh, 2018, I think?” Soma answers. He’s honestly not sure. “Sometime before 2020, definitely.”

“Ohhh okay, see after 2009 I stopped getting memes,” Jade says.

“HOLY FUCK WHAT!?”

“We lost all contact with the old internet when we created a new universe!!” Jade explains. Soma is too busy freaking out about the fact she doesn’t know what yeet is to even register that she said she created a universe. “And then in the new universe our internet got invaded with troll memes, which aren’t bad, but god I’ve never heard of a yeet in my life.”

Soma is already reaching into his pocket for his phone. “I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO SHOW YOU!!!!”


	2. conditional immortality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team F discusses conditional immortality.

“You never did explain the conditional immortality,” Snake says to Jade one day, as they’re setting up camp.

“Oh yeah,” Shulk says, looking up from what he’s doing. “I’m certainly glad it’s a thing, but I am curious about _how_ it’s a thing.”

“Oh!!” Jade lights up, excited to explain. “Okay, I’m not sure about the exact _hows,_ because there’s a lot of weird magic that Sburb has running it, but I can tell you guys the rules!!”

She waits a moment, mainly to see if she has all of her companions’ attention—she does—and also deciding which set of rules she’ll start with. The rules for a Just death, she thinks, just to get it out of the way.

“So, there are two ways to die,” she says. “The first way is if like, you become some kind of super villain. Obviously, an unkillable super villain is bad!! So if your death counts as Just, because you’d reached super-villain status before dying, then the death sticks.”

Her companions, as they watch her, can note a sense of trepidation that enters her voice as she lays down the rules for a Just death, as if some kind of bad memory is entering her mind and she’s trying to push it away.

She shakes her head, puts on a smile again.

“Your death will also stick if it’s a Heroic death—that’s the second way to die,” she continues to explain. “So if you die protecting your friends, or in sacrificing yourself to save the world, you die a Hero and stay dead!”

“So it’s useless,” Soma says.

Jade laughs, remembering the time she and Dave discussed the same. “Yeah, it’s really only good for saving you from dying of something stupid.”

“I mean, I’d take immunity to sneak attack deaths,” Snake voices, sounding pretty serious.

Jade nods. “Yeah, that bit’s nice,” she agrees. “It’s the still-have-to-be-careful-when-protecting-your-friends that sucks.”

“Okay but the most important question,” Soma says. “Can you die for willfully doing something stupid? Like, come on, if you jump into an explosion just for the lulz shouldn’t that kill you just because you’re being an idiot.”

“GOOD QUESTION,” Jade agrees.

“I don’t think that meets the conditionality requirements,” Kratos argues.

“Yes but knowing if our own hubris will kill us has been a constant haunting question,” Jade tells him, grinning wide as she and Soma meet eyes. “You got an explosion spell? We could try it. I’m not afraid of death.”

“Hell yeah I got one,” Soma says, getting to his feet.

Kratos steps between the two of them, putting his hands up. “Absolutely not.”

“It probably won’t kill me!” Jade assures him, batting her eyes innocently.

“Perhaps it’s better if we don’t try,” Kratos says.

“Yeah, please I don’t want Jade to die again, especially not permanently,” Shulk adds.

“Awwwwwwwwww,” Soma and Jade chorus in unison, but they return to their tasks.


	3. the most disaster gay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mithos and Chara talk to a new friend. Joseph infodumps. Chara knifecats. Mithos hates his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i haven't even introduced Joseph in dwyc primer LMFAO well he's an oc from ftpverse, he's 13 years old and the knifecat preteen energy between him and Chara was too much to pass up

“ _Humans_ ,” Mithos hisses, with disdain, sharing a knowing look with Chara.

“Oh, I’m not human!” Joseph says, brightly. His grin is wide, and he habitually shoves his hair out of his face. He looks so much like Kratos like that, bangs long enough to fall into his eyes, though his are cut in such a way that they usually obscure his right rather than his left. Mithos knows from experience with Kratos that Joseph’s effort to keep his hair out of his face are going to be pointless, but Joseph tries anyway, and that’s almost… endearing.

“You’re not?” Chara asks, eyebrows raising slowly, sweet disbelief humming in the emotion bleed between them and Mithos.

“Nope!” Joseph replies. “I’m a Replica—have you met my friend Riku, or Namine? I’m like them!”

“We’ve met Riku,” Mithos says.

“I still don’t really understand the Replica thing though, if I’m honest,” Chara says, deadpan, and Mithos very gently strangles all the fondness he feels for that tone of voice.

“Hmmmm,” Joseph says, tapping at his chin, his expression bright as he playfully scowls towards the sky. Already, his hair is falling in his eyes again. “Well, I don’t know how well I’ll be able to explain it, because honestly I’ve never really understood more than the basics of how data combines with magic to make Replicas—and it’s weird with me, anyway, you know? Because unlike Riku and Namine I’m not a _traditional_ Replica. I’m not a copy of any one person, I’m more like… what was it Jade called it? Genetic slurry?”

“Genetic slurry?” Chara repeats, like this is the most absurd thing they’ve ever heard, and boy would they like to hear more. Mithos very carefully strangles his fondness, again.

Joseph nods exuberantly. “Yep!” he declares. “I’m not sure if I’m using it quite the way she was, but—if you took the data from a _lot_ of people, and mashed it together—” He pantomimes doing so with his hands, and then shakes his hands and the proverbial slurry up and down a few times for good measure “—well, then you’d get me!”

“That’s incredible,” Chara says. The emotion bleed suggests they genuinely think so.

“Isn’t it?” Joseph agrees. His face is like the sun. His excitement is contagious.

Chara sends Mithos a smug, very knowing look.

“Shut up,” Mithos hisses, even though Joseph is _right there_ to hear it.

“You’re a _disaster_ ,” Chara laughs, their grin wide and delighted, a little cruel, and Mithos literally could not be strangling all his fondness any harder than he is right now. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to strangle both the sharp fondness he holds for Chara and the new gooey feeling that’s bubbled up in him from watching Joseph talk so avidly.

“Shut _upppp,_ ” Mithos whines.

“Hmm?” Joseph says. It’s about a half second later that he gets it, though, looking between Mithos and Chara. “Oh,” he says. “Ohoho. Is this what I think it is?” he asks, and that tone of voice is unbearable, Mithos hates this, Mithos turns his head away and scowls at—literally anything that isn’t them, because if he looks they are _going_ to see him blushing, _Father_ why did you make blades blush the color of their ether, he is _bright fucking blue, right now._

“If what you think it is has anything to do with our dear friend Mithos being the most disaster gay I have ever met, managing to crush on the both of us even though he’s only known you about ten minutes, then, yes, in fact, it is exactly what you think it is,” Chara says, like they’re taking _great_ enjoyment in his pain, and Mithos absolutely hates that about them. ( _No he doesn’t. He wishes he did._ )

Joseph bursts out laughing. “Ohhhhh that is _incredible,_ holy crud, I don’t think- I think I’ve only seen Kano look that sappy around anyone!!” He won’t stop laughing and it sounds so beautiful and Mithos literally wants to turn into _base fucking ether_ to get out of this situation. “And- Chara, Chara, Chara, are you serious? He’s crushing on _me?_ ”

“His heart did the emotional equivalent of a thousand sunflowers suddenly blooming at once, so, I would say so—”

“I don’t fucking have a heart!” Mithos spits. The least Chara could do is get blade terminology right.

“Nerd,” Chara responds, and Joseph keeps laughing.

This is? The worst.


	4. in which Jade casts Indignation but it's fine, really. no like sincerely. it's fine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> misc Team A interaction i keep thinking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if this were kh canon namine, this would be a very different scene, but this is ftpverse namine, who being a replica and all that has different problems, different traumas, etc. nice

“ _I, who stand in the full light of the heavens, command thee, who opens the gates of hell._ ”

Sora’s gotten pretty used to Jade’s incantations that he clearly needs to focus when he’s casting magic—and Sora can’t really talk himself, even though _he_ only shouts spell names, but then again Jade’s magic ( _or, fonon bullshit???_ ) is like twenty times more powerful, so maybe it makes sense he needs longer incantations. Anyway. They’re still kind of weird, even if Sora’s gotten used to them, but he feels kind of relieved as he hears Jade start to cast nonetheless, because these—

These creatures they’re fighting. They’re… weird. Made out of some kind of dark smoke turned solid, tasting a bit like darkness but a little more scattered, unhinged, Sora doesn’t know. All he knows is that he’s not fully convinced swinging his Keyblade at them is _doing_ anything as far as killing them. He’s pretty sure they’re just dissipating to avoid his swings and then reforming and magic is more effective but there are _so many of them_ and Sora’s not _that_ good and the best kind of AOE spells are the ones he can’t use because Namine’s _right there_ and—

Hold on, actually. The magic Jade’s gathering…

“ _Come forth, divine lightning! Indignation!_ ” Jade calls.

Sora’s heart stops for a second too long, but he still manages to locate Namine and throw himself at her before the spell discharges, a Reflect as strong as he can make it thrown up around the both of them. Not that it was _aimed_ at either of them, Jade’s control of his magic is _incredible,_ but he feels Namine flinch in his arms as it lands and fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck—

“Don’t _do_ that!!!” Sora screeches, across the field.

“Hmm?” comes Jade’s voice, confused.

“Sora I’m fine,” Namine protests. She’s pushing him off of her, which, okay, Sora listens there but still scowls at her, concerned. “ _Really,_ ” she insists, before Sora can protest. “I’m not- I’m not Riku.”

“Well, yeah,” Sora agrees, though she seems to have forgotten the months she spent neck-deep in Riku’s memories, and no Sora wasn’t _there_ for all of it but he knows they _both_ have problems with- with—

“If it’d hit me, that’d be another story,” Namine counters, soft. “ _I’m_ fine. Again: I’m not Riku.”

“Replica made of his memories,” Sora counters back.

“Still fine,” Namine says, and it’s kind of annoyed, and okay maybe Sora should drop it, but. He still runs his hands down her arms, worried.

“I suppose I’m not getting a thank you for clearing the field, then,” Jade says, and Sora’s _pretty_ sure that’s just dramatics and it _should_ piss him off but he feels kind of bad, if he’s honest. Then again, if it had been Riku here, and not Namine, that wouldn’t have been an overreaction at all, so checkmate brain. Shut up. “Is there a problem?” Jade asks, and he stops, standing above Sora and Namine, adjusting his glasses. Is he annoyed, or concerned? Sora doesn’t know. Jade’s _impossible_ to read.

“Well,” Sora begins.

“Not really,” Namine answers. “Sora’s just overprotective.”

“If you’d been Riku, no one would be yelling at me for overreacting,” Sora reiterates, because it’s a valid point and it doesn’t help his cause if it’s just jittering around in his brain instead of being out in the open.

Namine considers that, and slowly sighs. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“And I know you’re not Riku,” Sora continues, just to be sure, squeezing Namine’s hands. “But I didn’t want… I mean it’s not like anyone casts thunder magic back home anymore so how was I supposed to know that you’d be—fine?” His explanation is nervous, a little rambly, but Namine’s expression softens, gets almost unbearably fine.

“Sorry to bother, but I’m still not hearing an answer to my question,” Jade says.

“Right,” Sora laughs.

“It’s just…” Namine begins, but the moment she tries to explain it, her eyes get a little wider, expression sour. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense that talking about the exact problem is probably… difficult for her, even if they _are_ Riku’s memories, not hers.

( _As far has either of them have described it, though, there were a handful of months where it didn’t really matter if they were his memories or not, because her brain was keen on overloading itself randomly with Riku’s worst memories thanks to an instability in her data, or something, so. She’s experienced the same shit he has. Just… differently. And probably less of it. Sora_ hopes _less of it._ )

“Our friend, Riku,” Sora explains, since Namine can’t. “He’s got… issues, being around thunder—lightning based magic. And like I said I wasn’t sure if Namine had the same issues or not because no one back home casts it much anymore.”

Jade considers them for a long moment, but his expression seems… serious. He’s not smiling quite so jovially, anymore. In fact, he’s not smiling at all.

“Should I not cast spells like that, then?” he asks, very seriously indeed.

“Well,” Sora says, but isn’t sure. He looks to Namine.

She shakes her head. “No, don’t worry about it,” she assures Jade. “That came nowhere _near_ hitting me, and so long as it doesn’t hit me, I’ll be okay. Again: not Riku.”

“Nothing wrong with being cautious,” Jade says. He’s still taking this seriously, which is kind of nice, given how little concern he seems to give everything else.

“See,” Sora says, glad he’s being backed up.

“Thundaja clears a field like no one’s business, though,” Namine argues, and she has a point there. Sure, whatever Jade just cast wasn’t _technically_ Thundaja, not by name, but it might as well have been. Felt no different than when Aqua does it. “And I’m serious about being okay.”

“Okay,” Jade says, and just like that he’s smiling again. “Well, we should catch up with the others then, shouldn’t we?” he asks.

“Oh, probably,” Sora agrees. Now that he’s not totally distracted with the battle and Namine and everything else, he can feel that little knot of Colette that sits in the back of his head and it’s… concerned. He probably worried her, didn’t he? Whoops. Drivers aren’t probably meant to do that, but Sora has no idea how to be a good driver, all he knows how to be is a good friend.

So he gets to his feet and helps Namine up since he _is_ the asshole that just knocked her down.

“Hopefully they haven’t gotten too far,” Namine says.

“Hopefully they haven’t stumbled on a portal without us,” Jade adds, with a grim smile. Sora really wishes he’d knock that out.

“I… don’t think Pyra’d do that to us, but I guess all her siblings are kind of wildcards, so, yeah, let’s hurry,” he agrees, and off they go.


	5. tomatoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thought about how Shulk canonically hates vegetables of all types and how Kratos hates tomatoes and so here's a Team F interaction (ft Jade Harley for science crimes at the end)

“You too, Kratos?” Shulk asks.

It’s a second before Kratos responds—like Melia ( _and frankly, himself_ ), Shulk gets the sense that Kratos is often off in his own thoughts and it takes him a moment or two to come back down. When Kratos does turn to him… well he doesn’t make enough of an expression for Shulk to be able to read it accurately, but Shulk takes the silence for confusion, or at the very least an open space for Shulk to elaborate, since Kratos isn’t responding right away.

“The tomatoes, I mean,” Shulk says.

“Oh,” Kratos says. He pushes at the offending chunks idly, piled on the edge of his plate as they are. He ducks his head down. “I know I should eat them, but they’re just the one thing I can’t stand.”

Shulk laughs. “No, no, I understand completely!” He doesn’t have a pile of tomatoes as much as he’s got a gathering of them—and the other vegetables he wasn’t eating—haphazardly left on his plate from where he was diligently eating around them. “Reyn and Fiora always get on my case about it—”

“About tomatoes?” Kratos interjects.

Shulk fumbles for a moment, then shrugs, sheepish. “Most vegetables, really,” he admits. “Carrots are alright, so long as they aren’t cooked, but anything else…”

He stops himself there, because that’s his point made. Kratos almost looks like he’s smiling at him.

“Taste or texture, out of curiosity?” Kratos asks.

“Depends on the vegetable,” Shulk answers. “Tomatoes, though…”

“The texture, right?”

Shulk laughs. “You get it!”

It’s—not a lot, really, but it’s still a nice bit of connection. And it’s nice to meet someone who dislikes tomatoes as much as he does. Shulk’s thinking about commenting on that, maybe, when he catches Kratos picking up a tomato chunk between his fingers and eye Jade thoughtfully and… what is he… he can’t be…

“Jade!” Kratos calls. “Catch!”

And he throws the tomato at her.

“Kratos you can’t just,” Shulk begins, somewhat horrified, but Jade is literally scrambling to catch the tomato in her mouth and, well. Alright. Kratos shoots Shulk a smug look and Shulk sighs. “Just because she’s… part dog, or whatever…” he begins.

“She’s also a dumbass young adult,” Kratos counters. When Shulk scowls, he elaborates: “Would your friend Reyn not do the same?”

Shulk sighs. “…he and Fiora both,” he admits, “Fine. I see what you mean.”

“Yo hey,” Jade interjects, her attention fixed avidly on them. “Normally I’d be offended because of all the dog nonsense but… You know what? I really, _really_ want to see if I can do that again. Throw me another.”

Kratos actually _laughs,_ and he does, and…

Alright, if she’s in on it, then Shulk has something he’s been considering.

“Hey, Jade?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Say my throw is really, _really_ bad. You can just use your space powers to redirect it, can’t you?”

Jade beams. “Oh absolutely. That’s honestly not even really a question!!”

“Great,” Shulk says, and he lobs a tomato chunk over his shoulder in the opposite direction of Jade.

She laughs, bright, and yes she _does_ redirect the tomato with a flash of green that’s tell-tale of her manipulating space, and maybe she and Shulk (with occasional input from Kratos) spend the rest of the evening playing around with physics using vegetables to test wild theories. And if they do, is that a problem? It’s a much better use of vegetables, in Shulk’s opinion.


	6. "what the fuck is a tomato"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> old YWKON joke
> 
> ft the combined teams M and M2

“Alright, lay another request on me,” Dave says.

He’s spent the past hour or so making up raps about dumb shit like french fries and gameboys and that one that Absolutely Isn’t About Karkat What Are You Talking About And Also No One Can Prove it. (Literally his entire family can prove it.)

Chara hums for a second, tapping their chin as if their eyes aren’t already alight with their idea and their smile uncomfortably wide. “You could always do one about how much humans suck.”

“Dude.”

“Or about blade rights,” Mithos offers, his smile not quite as wide as Chara’s but definitely an air of smugness about it.

“ _What._ ”

“Well?” Chara tilts their head back, expression almost daring.

Dave scrunches up his face, just for his own benefit.

“Dudes y’all were supposed to give me dumb shit like. I rapped about potatoes. Maybe I should do one about tomatoes.” He says it as a joke but also as soon as he says it ideas and rhymes are forming in his head. “The fundamental difference between the two, or some shit, yeah I think I’m onto something here—”

“Cool,” Anna interjects, “but also what the fuck is a tomato.”

“Yeah I’ve never heard of one in my life,” Mithos adds.

Dave gapes at them. Chara also gapes at them.

“I’m… sorry but it’s literally one of the most common vegetables,” Chara says, squinting. “How do you _not_ know what a tomato is. How could you _possibly_ not know what a tomato is. You seem to understand every other food item I have ever said to you, ever, so why not the tomato.”

Anna shrugs. Mithos scowls a little.

Dave sees his opportunity.

“Guess I better lay down some ed-u-tain-ment—”

“Oh my god,” Chara sighs.

They never do figure out why neither Anna or Mithos (or Kratos, for that matter) don’t know what a tomato is, though.


	7. Colette talks to Anna about Miang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colette has a request.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember how i pitched tehse as only being like 500 words long. anyway i just straight up didn't want to post this separately

“Hey, Anna?” Colette asks.

It’s… weird, to be approaching her, and Colette can’t shake that weirdness. That wrongness. This is an Anna that knows her, but it is not the Anna she knows. An Anna whose son is still a child. An Anna who rescued the Aegises herself. God, does Colette sometimes wish it was the Anna she knew.

( _But knowing a different Anna would mean knowing a different Lloyd, and Colette wouldn’t trade **her** Lloyd for anything._)

Anyway, Anna calls out “hang on, a few more!” as she finishes up what she was doing, which was one-armed pushups. She’s almost counted to a hundred, which is where Colette assumes she’ll stop. This corner of the Observatory looks like a landing platform for some kind of vehicle, a metal that isn’t steel beneath Colette’s feet, the lights bright and sparkling around the edges of it. Like the rest of the Observatory, only invisible shields separate them from the expanse of space, and the stars twinkle in every direction. It makes the part of Colette still tainted with Martel’s memories ache for _home._ Colette breathes against the sensation, long and slow.

A pair of Lumas fly by overhead, laughing bright and childlike. Anna declares her hundredth pushup delightedly and then sits herself down right on the ground. Makes sense. Colette sits with her.

“Hey, Colette!” Anna says, brightly, in a tone that hits in a way that makes Colette’s core ache for reasons she doesn’t want to pin down. “You need something?”

“Just… wanted to say something, before we all head back home, whenever that is,” Colette says. “A warning, I guess.”

Anna’s expression darkens. “A warning…?” she repeats.

“Just…” Colette traces the scars on her core crystal. “I think you should probably try and contact Myyah—well, I guess she’s going by Miang Hawa, now—before she does…” Colette’s tongue fumbles over all the things her mother did, all the things she’d probably do again. “…something drastic,” she finishes, instead.

Anna’s squinting at her like she’s trying to pin down a thought but can’t quite. She’s gone very still in the kind of way Anna never does.

“Who…?” she asks, quiet, distant.

The reincarnation nonsense is absolutely not something Colette wants to get into right now.

“You… won’t remember her,” Colette begins, though she’s not sure how she’s going to get through this _without_ explaining the reincarnation nonsense.

“But she knows me?” Anna asks, still distant.

“Well, it…”

“Wait, wait,” Anna blinks, comes back to herself. She starts fidgeting one of her knees, bouncing it from where it’s folded under her. “You said this mystery woman would do something _drastic_ to see me? First of all I guess I’m flattered, second of all drastic plus mystery woman is usually bad so… _how_ drastic?”

Colette breathes a sigh of relief. That’s a more useful question.

“Well, kidnapping Lloyd, drastic,” she answers.

Anna jolts where she sits, recoiling. “What the _fuck!?_ ” she spits, in bare, furious surprise.

“In her defense,” Colette says, always scrambling to defend her mother even though she knows by now it’s probably not worth it. “She was just trying to kidnap the Aegis driver because she wanted to see _me and Zelos_ —”

“Oh that’s right, Lloyd’s driving you in your world,” Anna interjects, laughing. “I always forget.”

“ _Anyway_.”

“Sorry.”

“She wanted Lloyd to get to us, but once she realized Lloyd was connected to you…” Colette stops there, scrunching her face up. Not even tracing the scars of her core crystal can soothe the unease that stirs in her stomach. “Well, I can’t—I _can’t_ excuse her for deciding to use Lloyd as bait rather than just let him go free so we could have a reasonable conversation with each other. I can’t excuse that. And I can’t excuse…”

She swallows. Fixes her gaze on the stars until the sky fills her vision, burns against her retina, all so she doesn’t have to think about Zelos, glowing and brilliant, _eyes blank_ —

“Colette?” Anna asks, concerned without any hesitation, gentle in the way that suggests she thinks it’s going to land. The Anna Colette knows always talks to her in a way that’s cautious, ashamed.

“Just,” Colette says, “maybe if you reach out to her, first, you can head some of that off.”

Anna squints at her. “Okay. Why the fuck should I want to contact someone who’s perfectly willing to kidnap my son, though?”

Colette sighs. Drops her hands into her lap.

“Because she’s my mother,” she says.

“Oh, shit.”

Colette smiles, wry, desperation burning in her eyes. “And I- I think she deserves to meet with us on… on reasonable terms, if such a universe can exist. I want things to be okay. I want- I want to meet my _other siblings,_ and actually get a chance to know them… And if I can’t, then another Colette…”

“I… guess I can understand that…” Anna says, very, very slowly.

“And maybe if you can talk her out of blade-eater’ing herself, that’d also be good,” Colette sighs, just so she has that on the table, too. Aurora said it had happened only a few years before they met so—surely not, in Anna’s universe. Surely not yet. “She might be less willing to resort to drastic measures if she wasn’t… well… dying.”

Anna squints.

“Blade-eater’ing shouldn’t kill someone.”

“Well, it was threatening to kill her.”

“…okay.” Anna clearly doesn’t understand, but Colette doesn’t want to go into the details. Anna traces the pattern of lights on the ground, and asks: “Well, how do I find her, then? I don’t want to go on a wild goose chase if I can avoid it.”

“Oh, here.” Colette digs into her bag. “I still have where she lives written down. I don’t know if that’s the same across universes, but it might be worth a shot.” She offers the paper to Anna.

Anna takes it, looking skeptical, but she tucks it into her pocket nonetheless. “Noted. I’ll see about it.”

“Please do,” Colette says. “Trust me, you don’t want to do that to Lloyd.”

“Yeah, got it,” Anna answers, knee bouncing again. She looks too full of energy, and she glares at something that isn’t Colette. “I mean- I _don’t_ want her to- to hurt Lloyd. But I’m just? Confused? This seems stupid. What if I can’t even find her.”

Colette sighs. There’s the Anna she’s more used to.

“You could try asking Jade,” she offers.

“ _Jade_?” Anna repeats, startled.

“I think he knows her, too. Him and Mythra. They might be more willing to hunt her down.” They actually _remember_ her, when Anna doesn’t.

Anna’s face scrunches up. “Architect, I don’t even know where Jade and Mythra _are_ ,” she literally whines. “I haven’t seen them since—”

Colette gets to her feet.

“Well, that’s not my fucking problem,” she interrupts, doing her best to take all the bitterness and anger in her core and lay it to rest. Fifteen years will always be much, much too long. And maybe it hasn’t been fifteen yet, for this Anna, but that doesn’t change the fact she still faked her own death and didn’t bother telling anyone who ever loved her that she was _okay_. That doesn’t change the fact the first thing she did _wasn’t_ go and look for her _son._

“Colette—” Anna calls after her.

But Colette is gone.


	8. different dialects

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chara and Mithos compare their dialects of signed language. (Er, it's much shorter than that,)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) wow here's a real skit!!! 2) i'm backdating this for reasons, don't mind me

What exactly happened, Mithos doesn’t know, but it’s clear that Chara didn’t take it well at all. They’re jittery, the emotion bleed sour—not _quite_ a panic attack, but they keep rubbing at their arms like they’re trying to self soothe. Mithos leaves them to it, as does Anna, but there’s a point where they have to ask Chara’s opinion for something and…

Chara makes a few harsh noises with their mouth, the start of a few consonants interspaced by hissing, and then they scowl, and mutter _fuck,_ and. The look they send Mithos is more furious than it is pleading, but the despair that touches the emotion bleed has that needling kind of request behind it, and Mithos knows what this looks like. He sees it all the time in Kratos.

“Can you,” Mithos begins, lifting his hands to sign along with his voice. “Can you speak in sign, like this?”

Chara squints at him, then slowly lifts their hands.

 _‘I can,’_ they say.

“Good,” Mithos says, brightly. “That’s a relief.”

Chara keeps squinting, though, and lifts their hands to speak again. ‘ _Sign *** for me, will you.’_

They make a sign with their hands that Mithos doesn’t know. He blinks.

“Oh,” he says, and then just to test something, signs the rest: ‘ _I’m beginning to see the problem that perhaps you have noticed? How much of this are you understanding._ ’

Chara stares at him for a long moment. Finally:

_‘…I think we have different dialects.’_

Mithos nods.

“It’s pretty similar, though,” he says, with his mouth. “So I should be able to understand you well enough? Worst case, you finger spell.”

Chara’s face scrunches up.

‘ _Disgusting_.’


	9. say a cuss Joseph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kano and Kairi are terrible influences.

Joseph fumbles, nearly drops his phone. “Oh, sh—” He cuts off in only the way a thirteen year-old who knows they aren’t supposed to say a cuss can. “ _Crap,_ ” he says, very slowly, very carefully. “I said crap.”

Naturally, the bad influences they are, Kairi and Kano descend on him like vultures.

“Joseph, hey.”

“Hey, Joseph.”

“29’s not here, Joseph,” Kairi says.

“You can totally say a cuss, Joseph,” Kano adds.

“Oh my god,” Joseph says.

“No one’s gonna tell~!”

“I wouldn’t!”

“Come on, say one cuss.”

“Say fuck, I wanna hear you say fuck.”

“You guys!!!!” Joseph protests.

“Well?” Kano says.

“ _We~ell?_ ” Kairi says.

“Now I’m nervous!!!!!!”

Kairi and Kano groan in perfect unison.

“Oh my god.”


	10. coffee beans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You ever think about Shadow saying he eats coffee beans straight in that one official Q&A from forever ago? yeah.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is ruri's fault

Shadow pauses as he slides into the kitchen, for two reasons.

The first reason is that someone is already in here. The Jade guy. Calls-himself-necromancer-but-really-isn’t, Jade. The one who isn’t Dave’s friend, Jade.

This surprises Shadow less than reason number two, which is that Jade is just sitting at the table… eating coffee beans? Out of the bag?

Like, Shadow’s not judging. Shadow can’t judge. That’s his preferred way to consume coffee, too, but.

“Problem?” Jade asks, smiling like he’s hoping to unsettle Shadow.

Shadow slides slowly over to the table. “Can I have some?” he asks.

Jade blinks at him. Then he shrugs and pushes the bag over.

Shadow does the polite thing and picks the bag up to pour some into his hand instead of just shoving his fingers in there. He’ll like, get a bowl. But first he pops the fistful of coffee beans into his mouth.

The betrayal is instant.

“ _Agugh, blegh,_ ” Shadow coughs.

Jade laughs to himself. Just a short chuckle, but enough to make Shadow glare daggers.

“I don’t know what you were expecting?” Jade says.

“Not chocolate,” Shadow answers. Like, sure, chocolate’s fine, but when you are expecting a mouthful of coffee and get fancy chocolate-covered coffee beans instead… Eugh. Bleaugh. Etc.

Jade laughs again. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“Whatever.”

Shadow rummages around for some actual coffee beans to eat.


End file.
